


Holden's Colleagues

by lapsi



Series: Holden's Series [3]
Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Masochism, Mentions of Murder, Minor Violence, Oral Sex, Sadism, True Crime, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-13 12:23:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsi/pseuds/lapsi
Summary: There's a gap between "I think I love you" and a reasonable response. This fic will explore that stressful interlude.Continuation of Holden's Friends, and Lovers.





	1. Chapter 1

Bill isn’t expecting immediate reciprocation. He doesn’t know if Holden does reciprocate anything more than fucked up desire. Some kind of silence would have been nice, though. Some kind of consideration of the enormity of the statement.   
  
Instead there’s just more rapid-fire anger. “What? Don’t be stupid,” Holden blurts out, narrowing his eyes.  
  
Bill drops the grip. “Stupid, huh?” he asks, bitter at once. But this isn’t about him, he knows. This is Holden’s own insecurities.  
  
“You want to fuck me. You’re not in love--”  
  
He cuts the boy off with a kiss, walking him back into his refrigerator, a surge of body against body.   
  
Holden is still trying to talk. “When I said figure out-- Bill,” he mutters, reproachfully.  
  
Bill takes his shoulders, turns him, bodies him into the cold, white appliance, hard enough that Holden comes up short of breath. “I need you to listen to me,” he spells out into the shell of his ear. Each enunciated letter is a hiss like passing pistol shots. The power pounds through his racing heart-- finally owning his own truths. Why killers sometimes start talking and don’t stop. An outpouring of self-expression. His chest moves in rhythm with Holden’s, pressing closer against him, lacing fingers and pulling Holden’s hand with his own. “I think I’m falling for you.”  
  
“Are you saying this because you feel guilty?” Holden breathes out, clearly unconvinced. He keeps trying to turn his head, stretching out the bruises over strained tendons.  
  
_Wants to analyse me like this is a fucking interrogation. This little shit._ “Why would I lie about this?” Tench asks. Holden is so irresistibly close that he doesn’t wait for a response, presses his lips into the fading injuries. First, he simply inhales the scent, then opens his mouth in exploratory kisses. Initially unforgiving, but becoming amorous and tentative as he tries to relax Holden’s resistance to the idea.  
  
“Bill, get off,” Holden murmurs in a strained tone.  
  
Bill chuckles at the turn of phrase. “You’re still not-- AH!” he jumps back, cradling his pinkie finger. Holden had bent it back far enough to possibly do some real damage.  
  
“I told you to get off me,” Holden says into the refrigerator, resting his forehead against the fogged surface. 

Bill is bristling and incensed by pain, but there’s something about Holden’s posture that halts him. It looks like a cornered feral. “I’m sorry. ...you okay?” he mutters, trying to keep an even keel.  
  
“Get out,” Holden says softly, still not turning. There’s catches and runs in every syllable he forces out. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that, Bill?” His voice grows wet around the name.  
  
“Kid, did I--”  
  
“Don’t fucking call me that. Get out. Fuck off back to your wife, and your kid, and your real job where we don’t see each other,” Holden rants, picking himself up in such a way that his back stays turned. Bill knows precisely why, and he doesn’t care for making Holden cry. His mind flashes back to Debbie, their conversation in his car in the rain. She wanted to know if he had feelings for Holden.  
  
“Holden, this isn’t a mindgame or a strategy or… If I wanted sex with a man, I could find someone who was less trouble than you. I mean, Jesus Christ, could I find someone more trouble than you?” There’s a tiny, annoyed huff in response to that. “My life is in shambles because of us. I’m not asking for pity from you. I just want to make it clear what sort of effect you have on me. Being inside my head right now, it’s like coming to the last track of a record and going round and round-- Holden Ford, Holden Ford--”  
  
“Would you stop it?” Holden mutters, but he now sounds closer to embarrassed than aggrieved.  
  
Bill steps closer and presses his hand between Holden’s shoulderblades. “I don’t like lying to you, Holden. I try very hard not to.”  
  
Holden could be frozen solid, he’s so still. Bill can barely hear him breathe. He turns Holden around gently-- there’s no great streams of tears down his cheeks, and his glassy wide eyes are somewhere else entirely.  
  
“Holden?”  
  
“I’m listening,” Holden returns too quickly. His reply has an unsatisfying, faraway quality.  
  
Bill frowns. “Do you believe me?”  
  
Holden’s eyes flit up and down in a rueful manner. “I believe you believe what you’re saying.”  
  
“What’s so beyond the realm of possibility? That I could fall in love with a man? With someone other than Nancy? ...that someone could love you?” he asks, and from Holden’s grimace, he’s on the money. “How fucking low is your self-esteem, man?” he blows out, exasperated. Between this, and how blasé Holden has been about the considerable damage he’d endured at Bill’s hands, an unpleasant story comes together. “What about Debbie, she--”  
  
“Don’t talk about Debbie.”  
  
“Can you explain yourself, then? Please?”  
  
“You don’t know me, Bill.”  
  
“How the fuck do I not know you? How many hours have we spent together? How much shit have we seen, been through, together? What, do you have a secret hobby I should hear about? Bullshit. I know you. You work, and you think about work, and maybe sometimes you watch an hour of TV or read some lurid true crime journalism and--” Bill trails off, because it’s not a flattering picture he’s painting. Holden’s lips are stretched into a fake smile.  
  
“And you _love_ that, do you? That I work twelve hour days, by choice, and come home to read about brutal murders before bed?”  
  
“I’m not saying your life is perfect, Holden. ...I’m not saying you’re perfect.”  
  
“Thanks for the clarification.”  
  
Bill gives him a deathly serious stare for several seconds. “...you are so goddamn infuriating, you know that?”  
  
“So you keep fucking saying,” Holden murmurs, the swear word clunky and intense. 

Bill thinks of the Speck interview, and for a moment he does wonder if there is a real Holden. A filthy, antisocial shell of a person pretending to be an eccentric FBI agent. But it’s stupid, and Bill knows it’s stupid.   
  
He examines Holden’s posture as he goes back to eating his sandwich. His lashes are still clumped. Bill knows he shouldn’t let Holden blow this off, but he needs to take the edge of the tension. He retreats to safe ground: “It’s a good idea. Watching the bridges. Start compiling a list of vehicles pulled over. If he’s dumping them off the bridge outta his car trunk, anyone watching will be able to hear the splash. We might not be that lucky. ...and Holden, this may well be a computer job. The sheer quantity of car records needing to be excluded could well derail the operation. You should talk to Keith Whitten. He consulted with Seattle PD on the Bundy case, he knows the tech better than anyone.”  
  
Holden is now listening very intently, calmly finishing his sandwich. He runs the tap, fetching a water glass and draining it in one. “Keith Whitten. Okay.”  
  
Bill tries not to let his posture reflect the yawning chasm that opens. The tenuous connection to Holden is only work related. He must have been deluding himself. “Okay.”  
  
Holden raises an eyebrow, like he’s waiting for more incisive critique. Bill’s jaw is tight, hoping desperately for any kind of emotional concession. None comes. Holden closes the gap between them, sinking to his knees. Bill is trapped between the kneeling young man, still wearing half his work clothes, and the kitchen bench behind. 

“Holden. Don’t.”  
  
“Do you have to be home soon?” Holden asks from below, staring up at Bill analytically.  
  
Bill swallows momentary self-hatred. He touches Holden’s cheek gently. “C’mon, kid. Get up,” he murmurs. “Not like this. Not because you want to… reciprocate something you can’t.”  
  
Holden responds with a sardonic eyeroll. “Actually, I just want to suck your cock.”  
  
Bill has heard a lot of awful things come out of Holden’s mouth; he’s never uptight about his language even in professional environments. But again, he’s struck by how disjointed and performative the words are coming from Holden. The sentiment should have him turned on. It’s Holden, after all. Holden’s mouth, his lips, barely inches away from his crotch. His fingers are still on Holden, now going to his hair, neatening it. Must have been a little mussed when he pushed Holden into the refrigerator. Holden reaches out to open Bill’s fly, who bats his hand away. Holden persists.  
  
“What, I’m not good enough for you? ...do you want to hurt me first?”  
  
It’s a pretty transparent attempt at stopping Bill from obsessing over his well-being. Still a spiteful little barb. “Your throat is very bruised, Holden. What you’re-- stop it-- what you’re trying to do is guaranteed to hurt you.”  
  
“I know,” Holden says quietly.  
  
The older man’s resolve takes a battering. It’s fascinating either way; Holden’s willing to endure the pain, or he likes it. The sickness whispers in Bill’s ear about how pretty Holden would look with his eyes watering, his lips stretched, choking in urgency. His fingers loosen over Holden’s, no longer keeping him from getting to the zipper.   
  
Holden smirks, resting forward until his cheek rests against the fabric of Bill’s hip. He concentrates very hard on the zipper, then eases the pants down. Bill leans back against the bench, hands hovering like he’s a moment from pushing Holden off. He does nothing.   
  
Holden has the waistband of his boxers down. Bill still does nothing. He’s suddenly conscious of his underwear choice, his salt and pepper pubic hair, even his size, which he’s previously found confidence in. It occurs to him, too, that Holden has probably never done this before. Then there’s no more space for clinical, detached concerns. Holden’s breath on him, then his lips, then the wet interior of his mouth. Bill shuts his eyes and leans back, fingers dragging across Holden’s scalp. Everything is quiet. It’s not very deep, and not as much suction as Bill usually likes. Awkward, perfect exploration. Reminding him that in some way, he’s Holden’s first.   
  
Holden’s tongue lathes him and his throat rumbles in an appreciative groan. Holden is quickly taking more, though, testing his own physical limits. Bill feels the warm suction cover more of the sensitive skin, and forces himself to look down. He doesn’t want to miss the sight of his own cock being enveloped by Holden’s lips, not when he’s dealt with phantasmic speculation so many nights wide awake. It’s better than fantasy, because his internal cinema was ripped from the few pieces of gay pornography he’d seen through work, each one of them tinged with the foul aftertaste of the associated crimes.   
  
It shouldn’t be so different than a woman (Nancy, oh, God, don’t think of her) but there’s something less conventional about it. His wife is more experienced, unquestionably, but it feels dutiful these days. Holden seems to actually want to do it. It’s far enough down his throat that it’s bound to be hurting and he’s straining, eyes watering, throat shuddering with what Bill assumes is repressed gag reflex. It’s irrefutable enthusiasm to push himself that far.  
  
“Don’t hurt yo--” he begins to warn, fingers clenching in Holden’s hair, and then trails off into another groan as Holden slides up and off. He feels the nudge of warm, wet internals.   
Tonsils maybe. The roof of Holden’s now saliva slicked mouth. A string of drool continues with Holden’s lips as he smiles up, breaking finally, the connection between them severed. There are tears in his wide, dilated eyes.  
  
“Isn’t that the point? Bill?” Holden mumbles, wiping his thumb over his bottom lip.  
  
“The point?” Bill queries, voice ragged, wrecked.  
  
“You like that I--”  
  
“Stop talking,” Bill bluntly orders, taking as much of Holden’s short hair as he can grasp, steering him down. Holden’s fingers hit Bill’s hips, palming over the fabric in indecision about resisting. He takes Bill back into his mouth, a weak choke as he reaches the last few inches, never quite reaching the loose curls of pubic hair. Now his hands go to Bill, on his hips, holding him still. He can feel, for a second, Holden exploring the muscles of his legs, even his ass.   
  
For a horrible second there is disgust, and he thinks of Debbie’s comment about his homophobia. But he can’t stop this, can’t freak out on Holden at this crucial, emotionally-wrought moment.   
  
The next thought that pushes up to the forefront of his pleasure drunk mind is that Holden is appreciating his body, admiring him, desiring him. It’s an unexpected ego stroke. Holden bobs his head, hitting a pleasant rhythm. He’s surprisingly good at it, which makes Bill curious, before he remembers that Holden had by all accounts an active sex life with a young, liberal girl. Probably taking a few more tricks from up Debbie’s sleeve.   
  
For some reason, despite Holden’s age, he doubts there were many sexual partners before that.   
  
Holden’s growing bolder, and Bill slowly brings himself to thrust to meet Holden’s movements. Holden’s nose is running, eyes watering, but he’s meeting Bill’s gaze with a familiar, crazy intensity. Every push down into his throat elicits a very well-hidden wince of pain. Bill doesn’t stop. Holden can tell him to stop. 

Bill bends down far enough to wrap his fingers around Holden’s neck, not forceful (like Hell he’s going to make the bruising worse and give Holden another week of guilt tripping) but squeezing enough for Holden to startle. He thrusts again, tugging Holden up by the roots of his hair. He thinks he can feel himself through the cartilage. Holden’s eyes squeeze show, shuddering with pain. There’s a whimper that becomes a shaky breath of pleasure from the kneeling man.  
  
“You like it, don't you?” Bill grunts out, no room for confession from Holden. He pulls in and out, less like oral sex and more like throat-fucking. _Nothing but resistance_ . Kemper’s words whisper from behind the stony walls of normal human life, and he tries to slam the heavy doors he keeps that shit behind. When that doesn’t work, he grabs Holden’s hair again, hard enough to jerk him off his knees for a moment. Holden startles, eyes flickering up.  
  
“I asked you a question, boy,” he growls, relishing the degradation. He feels guilty immediately afterwards. But, from the way Holden tries to nod, even with his glossy lips taut and mouth full, he’s as much playing into Holden’s deviancy as he is his own. He allows Holden to set the pace again, leaning back and steadying himself on the bench.  
  
It takes a few minutes for Bill’s arousal to overcome his tumultuous guilt. It happens, though, a hot flash of pure twisted pleasure at the soft sounds Holden makes when the thrusts go too deep. Holden swallows, he thinks.   
  
Doesn’t know, because Holden is up on his feet, unsteady at first and then hurrying away down the hall.   
  
Bill shivers, staring at the roof. _How could you do this? Again? William Tench, you piece of shit._ He zips up his pants, tucks his shirt back in, and then follows Holden. He can hear the running water, but it stops before he pushes the bathroom door in.   
  
Holden is standing, in a horrible stare-down with his own reflection. He barely acknowledges Bill, who walks behind him resting a paternal hand on his shaking shoulder. A few drops of water are still falling from his chin, and his lips are pink and shiny with abrasion. Holden doesn’t meet his eye, even in the mirror. Then, as if from a trance, he's businesslike again.  
  
“What if we just told them about the bridges, and let them come around to the surveillance on their own?”  
  
Bill’s groan is soft and completely defeated.


	2. Chapter 2

“You know, Holden, there’s healthy compartmentalization, and then there’s this shit,” Bill says, eyes squinting in the shiny bright bathroom.  
  
_Just the man to wax lyrical upon how unhealthy repression is._ “I thought we were done, and I could move on to another topic. Did you want to cuddle after _that_ ?”  
  
It has the desired effect, a flicker of pain across Bill’s eyes.   
  
Holden didn’t realize how much distaste he was injecting into the words. He looks at himself in the mirror. _I’m really here. I’m really here, I really did that._ And then: _Debbie, where are you?_ He feels a brief desire to break Tench’s fingers for real this time. He learned that trick in training. Of course, he just now demonstrated that method of self-defence to Bill. Bill could anticipate it. Bile rises in his throat again, the unpleasant taste lingering in the edges of his mouth. Would the man behind him be offended if he rinsed his mouth again?  
  
“We weren’t done,” Bill murmurs gruffly. He steps closer into Holden’s sacred, private therapy session. The hand wraps intimately across Holden’s chest. “...I’m sorry. Are you okay?”  
  
Holden mutely shakes his head, though he’s not sure at what. The intimacy feels very different, warm, reassuring. Maybe he did want to cuddle, but like hell he’d say that to Bill. Bill’s arm squeezes gently on his waist, and then Bill is behind him, staring at him in the mirror. It feels very pleasant. Like a real relationship. He probably uses this shit on Nancy when she gets upset. The thought hardens him to the rush of endorphins he’s getting from physical contact with another human. 

“You know. I lied to you before.”  
_  
Here it comes. _ Holden faintly hopes Bill turns out to be a serial killer, so he’ll finally be put out of his misery. It would explain some things.  
  
“I implied… I implied that the way I felt about you was some sort of irrationality. I said you weren’t perfect. The truth is, I wouldn’t change a damn thing about you, Holden.”  
  
Holden feels delirious laughter building up in the back of his burning throat. He stifles it, but the cynicism is plain in his tone. “What?”  
  
“I’m dead serious.”  
  
“Then you’re crazy.”  
  
Bill snorts. “Maybe. Yeah.” He seems to take the words on too deeply, slumping. “Holden, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. His eyes are screwed closed, and his hands momentarily tighten on Holden’s waist.  
  
Holden is horrified to notice that Bill looks close to tears. He tries to turn around in some way, cradle the larger figure. The truth is, he has no idea what to do to comfort someone. Bill has regained control of himself a moment later.  
  
“You need to talk to someone, Holden. A therapist. Maybe a psychiatrist. Your mind is amazing and it’s this close to being burned out on self-destruction.”  
  
“What about _your_ mind?”  
  
Bill shakes his head.  
  
“You’ve contributed dozens of times what I have to the agency. You’re wasted teaching snot-nosed kids how to run an obstacle course.”  
  
“That’s… not what I do…” Bill responds, benumbed. “You’re half my age. There’s no point comparing our achievements.”  
  
“No, I’m not. And even if I was, I’m not exactly a company man.”  
  
“Ain’t that the truth,” Bill mutters. “Holden. It’d kill me to see you go down the path you seem to be on. I mean it. It would actually kill me. Likely in the form of your ex-girlfriend coming over to my house and blowing my brains out--”  
  
“Debbie hates guns.”  
  
“Quelle surprise. Okay, she’ll poison me. Cut my brake line. Something devious.” 

Holden smiles wryly, and bows his head. Debbie probably couldn’t find a brake line. “It takes two to go down this path.”  
  
“...we should stop this. I’m not healthy for you, and you’re not healthy for me.”  
  
Now you’re getting it, huh? “I thought you were in love?” Holden asks bitterly.  
  
“I think I am.”  
  
“Well, I think I am too,” Holden mutters, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“With… me…?”  
  
“Obviously, Bill,” Holden grinds out. “You think I just give out blowjobs like welcome desk mints?”  
  
Bill stares at the tiny mirror, like he’s examining the dirty edges. Holden tries to catch his gaze unsuccessfully. Irrationally, anxiety drenches him, that Bill is going to flee now. They were saying farewells anyway, weren’t they?  
  
“Why didn’t you say so? When I told you how I felt?” Bill murmurs.  
  
Holden shrugs lamely. “I couldn’t tell you why I do half the things I do these days,” he admits.  
  
“Being accountable is terrifying."  
  
Holden just nods, thinking of Brudos’ photo and his flimsy excuses. “I thought if I responded, it would be a de facto concession. You’d think I believed your declaration.”  
  
Bill gives humorless smile in the mirror.  
  
“ ...I do believe you, Bill. Do you believe me?” Holden whispers.  
  
He leans forward, kissing Holden’s neck gently. “It’d be pretty hypocritical to tell you that you don’t know me, right?”  
  
Holden smile rises momentarily, but fades. “It’s all a bit academic, isn’t it? What we feel for each other? You’re married. We’re supposed to have a professional relationship. ...we’re two men, working for the FBI, hardly a bastion of progressive thought. There’s no way we could ever be in a real relationship.”  
  
Bill nods at that. “It still means something, Holden. It means something to me,” he adds, kissing Holden’s neck again. This time, Holden leans shut-eyed into the touch. There’s a plume of warmth easing his tense insides. 

Bill seems to remember that for all of the attention bestowed upon him, Holden is still untouched. His cheek rests against the short hair of Holden’s nape, all on end with goosebumps. He presses a kiss into the skin. Holden is pliant now, draping back like a renaissance carving. Bill tugs and untucks Holden’s t-shirt, splays a hand across his chest beneath the white stretch cotton. Holden’s heart thrums against his calloused fingertips, cock stirring. Holden laces Bill’s other hand and tugs it up towards his throat.  
  
“Relax, Holden,” Bill murmurs, not touching the bruises, ghosting over them before his hand drops down and starts opening Holden’s fly.  
  
Holden’s starts, eyes reopening.  
  
“Relax,” Bill says again.  
  
It’s impossible to. There’s some inexplicable anxiety about sex that isn’t combative or degrading or depersonalized. Maybe that’s it. They were almost out-of-body experiences for him. He couldn’t believe he’d be involved in those obscene sex acts, so he didn’t process them emotionally. Not too far off the way his interview technique stays compartmentalized. But this feels shockingly good.   
  
Bill is still kissing his neck, rubbing his still hard cock through his briefs. Better than Debbie. Well, he’s a man who presumably masturbates regularly. Unsurprising his technique is refined. It’s more than just that. Bill’s lips, the faint scratch of his late-night stubble, his large, pale eyes in the mirror drinking in Holden’s reaction. His now endearing flat-top. Holden notices how stupid the pattern of his tie is, scrunched up and caught against Holden’s shoulder.   
  
_Why are you still wearing your fucking tie, Bill?_ Holden is dizzy with sensation, but it hasn’t shut his frantic, anxious thoughts off in the same way that oxygen deprivation did.  
  
“...I can stop if this is making you uncomfortable,” Bill murmurs.  
  
Holden doesn’t respond to that out loud. _It is, and please don’t._ He just tilts his aching neck further, twisting to press Bill’s face into his racing pulse. Bill’s other hand has reached skin, pushing aside the elastic and cotton. His palm smears precum along Holden’s length and begins a slow, decisive rhythm. Holden jerks at how intense the sensation is, a reminder that he hasn’t touched himself since before the weekend. And he has been thinking about sex with abnormal regularity. He’d imagined going down on Bill several times before his body had simply performed the daydream out. That smacks of deviancy. Bill is breathing heavily, and Holden has to acknowledge Bill is taking pleasure in his pleasure, not in any perversity. He relaxes into Bill’s embrace, allowing the older man to take more of his weight.  
  
“Is that good?” Bill asks intently, near Holden’s ear. The hushed words are attentive, velvety. Holden abruptly hates Nancy for having this man beside her in bed every night.  
  
“Mmm.” He’s hoping that Bill doesn’t force him to admit any more. Bill of ten minutes ago would have interrogated it out of him, especially while he was in this vulnerable position.   
  
But this warm, affectionate Bill just seems pleased. _What triggered this transformation? That petite, delicate sentiment of “I think I might love you back”?_ Bill’s thumb resting against his chest brushes over a nipple in an exploratory flick. Holden allows out a very soft, slightly vocal sigh. Bill repeats the gesture a few more times, but that’s as much as he has to. Holden is done almost embarrassingly quickly. Bill almost at once turns the faucet on, cold water to run mess down the sink. With unfamiliar tenderness he tucks Holden back neatly into his clothing, even zipping and buttoning his slacks back up. He holds Holden very tight.  
  
“...was that… stopping this?” Holden asks, in a spent, wry tone.  
  
Bill kisses his neck softly, shaking his head.   
  
Holden sees a staggering sadness in the single jerky movement.  
  
Bill licks his lips to speak, and doesn’t. He tries again: “I think I wanted our relationship to be terrible. I wanted it to be pure depravity, that I could categorize it and file away. Work life slipping into our subconsciousness. I wanted there to be that overwhelming reason to end this.” He sighs, gaze floating up to the roof. “I didn’t want to be here, in this situation.”  
  
“What situation?” Holden asks, turning around to face him. He expects Bill to back up. He doesn’t. They’re close enough to kiss, leaning against each other.  
  
“The situation where--” Bill stops speaking, voice grating. He bridges the miniscule gap, brushes his thumb over Holden’s cheekbone. “--where I know that in another, more forgiving world, we could have been great together.”  
  
Holden swallows hard. This sounds a lot like a ‘goodbye’. He panics. “I got another card from Kemper. Did I show you? It’s down in my car.”  
  
“Kid, listen to me. I should never have taken out my issues on you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the headfuck. ...I bet you’re sorry for headfucking me, seeing where it got you.”  
  
“I’m not ashamed of anything I did with you,” Holden replies boldly, but it falls flat. He is ashamed, to his core. Nancy. Brian. Not even to mention how borderline abusive this pseudo-relationship has been, and how readily he’s manipulated Bill.  
  
Bill checks his watch, which Holden notes as a cowardly fucking cop-out.  
  
“Go, then. I’ll see you when you consult on the case,” Holden says, jaw tight.  
  
“What do you want me to fucking do? Let’s get married, Holden. Let’s move in together. We can carpool to fucking Quantico,” Bill snaps.  
  
“I want you to leave, for starters. Your wife will be expecting you,” Holden says, trying to keep his despair shrouded. He turns abruptly and begins looking for a towel in his cupboard with excessive deliberation. “Would you mind locking the door on your way out? I have to shower.”  
  
Holden waits for the door to slam before he slides down against the tiled wall. For at least a minute, the silence roars in his ears like someone’s screaming right in his face, and he sits mute and detached. His body is an awful and alien shell. There’s pins and needles running across his hands where they lay slumped in his lap like rigid, detached limbs. And then he’s back in his skin all at once.   
  
The loss eviscerates him.   
  
His vision gives in to a streaky mess, and he sobs.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s not quite quarter past eight when she opens the basement office’s door.  
  
Most of the time, Holden is already at his desk embroiled in some horrific early morning catch-up. Most of his updates are from Atlanta, but she’s noticed a few other pet cases creeping in now that he’s bogged down in bureaucracy.  
  
Today, though, she turns on the lights herself, alone in the tranquil morning. She sits his coffee on the edge of her desk, and leaves the door open, waiting for him to arrive. She’s thumbing through potential subjects, trying to deduce how they would react to pairings of her available interviewers. She no longer has her dream team (not that she ever thought of them as that at the time, it’s a retroactive label after listening to some terrible attempted interviews).  
  
Firstly Herb arrives, giving her his usual, uptight greeting.  
  
Another fifteen minutes, and still no Holden.  
  
Then Altar Boy. Holden’s petty nickname has regrettably entrenched itself in her mind. He’s a lot warmer with his hello, and so is she, even though she’s forgiven precisely none of his actions with the OPR.  
  
She sees why law enforcement agencies become so opaque and incestuous. Presenting a united, authoritative front is harder while she distrusts her own team. Academia thrives on dispute, not so FBI divisions. She’s reading up on David Berkowitz’ early life, seeking exploitable personal associations when her phone rings. Her specific office number rings regularly, but Holden is very late, and fleetingly she’s afraid there’s been a car accident. She relaxes at Bill’s voice.  
  
“Wendy. How are you this morning?”  
  
“Coffee machine’s still broke.”  
  
“That bad?”  
  
“Hang on.” She crosses the room to close the door, then sinks back into her chair with a smile. She’s liked Bill from the moment he walked into her office, back when she was a shiny new doctor of psychology, and he was a dashing FBI agent trying add nuance to his cut-and-dried preconceptions about criminality. Would have been a perfect romantic comedy set up, if she wasn’t a deep-dyed lesbian. She picks the phone up again. “You can’t have possibly read everything Holden gave you yet. I saw the file. Must have been a hundred pages.”  
  
“He didn’t know you’d already been leaking case files to me. I got some double-ups,” Bill replies. “Besides, the compilation he handed over was basically propaganda in support of his proposal. And then a total war strategy for implementing it. Some reading between the lines was called for.”  
  
There’s some veiled unhappiness in Bill’s tone, even as he tries to sound facetious. Holden is already trying to exploit Bill’s seniority, and he’s not even back yet. “I’m sorry. I’ll have a word.”  
  
“I anticipated it. Still, we should discuss the proposal formally. Are you free to talk tomorrow? Any time from eleven works for me.”  
  
“I can do eleven.”  
  
“Perfect. I’ll have Felicity pencil you in, and I’ll see you then.”  
  
“You want me to come to you?” Wendy asks, curious.  
  
“Is that a problem?”  
  
“Not a problem, per se. Obviously, Holden should be there. It’s his proposal. Besides, he’s near eidetic on this case. You never know when a seemingly obscure, tangential fact will be crucial to the handling of this case. He’d be able to contribute much more than me. This is largely logistics, not psychology.”  
  
“Then I’ll come to you to make things more convenient for you and Holden.”  
  
“Bill,” she chides. “I’m not saying we can’t walk a few hundred feet. I’m asking you if I’m missing any critical information regarding your current standing with Holden. You do want him in the meeting, don’t you?”  
  
“I was just being lazy, Wendy. I’ll come down to the Bat Cave.”  
  
She scoffs. “Never took you for a comic book guy, Bill.”  
  
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”  
  
“A secret double life? Are you Batman? ...Robin?”  
  
Bill hangs up on her, and she stays smiling at her phone for a few more seconds before she hangs up too. But the nostalgic pleasure fades into cold analysis.  
  
If it’s not some residing personal issue between him and Holden (they seemed close to friendly yesterday, and she can’t imagine much could change overnight) then it’s almost certainly that Bill doesn’t like the proposal. Never was very good at shutting Holden down, which is why he was so easily dragged along Holden’s egotistical flights of fancy. She has refined the skill a lot since Bill left her to babysit Holden single-handedly. She’ll hear Bill out. Unlikely he changes Holden’s mind, not after he’s become so set upon one course, but she will listen receptively. Two against one could outcompete even Holden’s rapid-fire rationalizations.

She reopens the office door and keeps half an eye out for Holden’s arrival.  
  
It’s past nine thirty by the time he makes it in, which is nearly unheard of. First the sick leave, now late arrival? She wonders if Holden has picked up a drug habit. A stimulant, she’d assume, to accomodate his late hours. Or something to take the edge off the horrors he's absorbing every working day. It wouldn’t be so shocking. He still seems largely unperturbed by the grisly subject matter, but it could be his coping strategies are routine and illicit. Perhaps a drinking problem.  
  
She catches his eye as he’s creeping to his desk, and beckons him over. Better to ask about the tardiness than let her imagination run wild.  
  
Holden closes the door behind him. His clothing is a little less impeccable than usual, and his handsome face is marred with exhaustion. A grey pallor has sunk deep into his skin.  
  
“Sorry. Slept through my alarm. I still don’t think I’m one hundred percent from the virus I had over the weekend.” He’s talking to her like she’s his boss, she notes.  
  
“Do you need to take the day off?”  
  
“I think I just needed sleep. And, well, I got it. Till nine AM. Unbelievable,” Holden says, shuffling and looking at his shoes. She cannot for the life of her tell if he’s lying. It’s hardly an excuse. People typically lie to cover up a sleep-in.  
  
“It’s not completely unheard of, a person sleeping until nine. Nothing dramatic occurred in your absence. My only gripe was that that coffee was for you, and now it’s probably stone cold.”  
  
He picks it up anyway, with a glance of gratitude. “Is that Berkowitz?” he asks, squinting down at her desk.  
  
“I think this one might have to be Herb’s.”  
  
“I can go _with_ Herb.”  
  
“You two don’t seem to bounce off each other,” she mutters, and then at his pout: “I’ll think about it. Work with him, Holden. Stop treating him like an obstruction. Please. I know he’s not--”  
  
“I’ll work with him. I _really_ want to talk to Berkowitz.”  
  
“You _really_ want to talk to everyone, Holden. There is not one file here you wouldn’t try to stick a reserved sign on if I let you have your way. There’s only one of you, and you’re currently advising on an active case.”  
  
Holden is assuaged, but unhappy with the reality of the situation. He steps back. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll stay late to make up for time lost,” he offers sardonically. He was always going to stay late.  
  
“By the way, Bill’s coming by tomorrow at eleven to talk about your proposal. ...remember our talk about taking critique professionally?”  
  
“Damn, that bad?” Holden asks, a little slowly. She sees the muddied mess of microexpressions and, again, cannot read them.  
  
“We didn’t discuss your proposal, Holden. We set a meeting to discuss your proposal. At eleven tomorrow.”  
  
Holden fiddles with the paper cup, nods, and then steps out, leaving the door open. Wendy watches him go to his desk and submerge himself in the overnight crime reports. She tucks her hair behind her ear, fingers running to her forehead to try to relax the growing frown. Strange to see Holden nervous. A dozen oddities but, like so many awful logic-puzzles of corpses, the truth remains indeterminate.

 

  
  
If there are any more peculiarities that day, she misses them. She leaves Holden at work late that night and finds him there in the morning. She assumes he must have been home. He always wears the same suit, so that won’t give anything away.  
  
“On your desk,” he says dryly.  
  
She glances through and spots the coffee. She smiles. It’s a very pleasant, non-threatening routine. Holden has stopped giving her puppy dog eyes, so she assumes he’s taken the hint. “How’s the cold?”  
  
“I’m fine. Is Bill coming here, or are we going to his office?”  
  
“He’s coming here. Not until eleven, though.”  
  
“Right,” Holden mutters. He seems to be hiding nervousness.  
  
“You know, I was thinking that it would be interesting to ask one of our more cooperative subjects their thoughts on the Atlanta case. Not that I anticipate groundbreaking insight, but I believe they could give away facets of their own psyches that they might not even be aware of.”  
  
From the abrupt glance, he clearly knows which ‘cooperative subject’ she refers to. She hasn’t talked about Kemper much. She’s aware it makes Holden uncomfortable, a response she normally she sees no benefit in evoking. She had the story about the Vacaville incident from Bill, who was cagey about the details, but it seemed obvious that Holden’s technique of buddying up to violent murderers had finally, dramatically caught up with him. She’d mostly been glad that the young, cocky agent had been slapped with a reality check, though she didn’t appreciate how it had drawn Bill into more layers of deception. Now she seeks to exploit the heightened tension to play Holden at his own interrogative game. What sort of falling out did the two partners have?  
  
“Can we pass that off as appropriate use of our study’s resources?” Holden asks, voice distant.  
  
“It would be more your area, surely? Call it… research. For your current advisory role. Obviously, Kemper would be perfect. If you two are still on decent enough terms. You and Herb could go. Or we could ask Bill. I have my feelers out, and I believe his current position may be less permanent than he believes. He could slot right back in.”  
  
“Kemper doesn’t like Bill,” Holden says, going through a stack of paper before him, aimlessly.  
  
“Then you could go alone,” she suggests coyly. She watches him closely, cataloguing his non-verbal responses. Those few days are the heart of the lingering issues with Bill and Holden.  
  
He gives the tiniest of shrugs. “If you think it’s a good use of my time, I’ll trust you.” 

Deferring, flattering. A lack of enthusiasm, where Holden should be out of his seat hypothesizing and postulating upon the potential merit of playing psychopaths off each other. “So you don’t think it’s a good idea?”  
  
“Kemper will probably have a lot of thoughts, but he’s by far been our most introspective and open interviewee. I think he’d be extrapolating from crime shows more than his own subconscious. ...the crimes are very different.”  
  
“According to your profile, two organized serial killers motivated by lust and exerting control over their victims where they lack control in their own lives. You’ve predicted the killer to be a similar age to Kemper when he was committing his crimes. Both abduct victims in their cars. Both transport bodies for disposal. Both are likely socially competent, intelligent, but never high achieving. ...they are likely different races, but both commit intraracial murders. Sounds fairly similar to me.”  
  
Holden picks up a pen, fiddling with it and making a note. Wendy knows she has him on the ropes.  
  
“Well, let’s ask Bill what he thinks about visiting Kemper.”  
  
She watches his lips fall open, stricken and unable to hide it. He’s still staring intently at his writing. She can’t quite read it upside down, but she’s fairly certain it’s gibberish. He’s simply occupying his attention somewhere else. A symptom of anxiety. Desperately trying to divert attention. “If you think so,” he repeats, falling back into familiar patterns.  
  
She continues her dissection with the poise of a surgeon. “Holden. If there’s something I need to--” Her phone rings, and she loses her grip on the incised scalpel. Holden swallows and she watches before her very eyes as the vulnerability is cauterized. His eyes narrow up at her, like cat’s iris focusing on prey. He knows what she was doing.  
  
“You should probably get that.”  
  
She closes the door, before she picks it up.  
  
“Good morning.”  
  
“Bill,” she greets, trying to keep the cloud of suspicion from her voice.  
  
“I’m sorry to cancel on you, but I’ve been called to give some congressman a tour of the new training facility I’ve been working on.”  
  
The excuse is so over-the-top she’s pretty certain it’s not fabrication. Still she’s dubious. “At eleven?” she asks.  
  
“Half past. But I think we’ll need--”  
  
“How about we come to you? As initially proposed. No need to swing by the Bat Cave. That should give us enough time.”  
  
Bill doesn’t reply at first. She’s pretty sure he’s smoking and scowling. So he was trying to duck out of their plans.  
  
“We’ll keep it brief,” she assures.  
  
“Holden isn’t capable of keeping anything brief," he says roughly.  
  
“He’ll be on a deadline. Throw your critique at him and I’ll drag him out by the ear before your congressman arrives.”  
  
More quiet, gentle static. “Okay. I’ll see you at eleven.”

 

 

Watching Holden in the elevator up is trickier than she imagined. She engages him in dull conversation about their office real estate situation, simply for the excuse to make eye contact. He’s doing a much better job at keeping his cool now, but he’s distracted, keeps thumbing through the file he’s gripping like a security blanket. He trails off a few times, and she sees him startle at the elevator doors grinding open. No mental breakdown or repeat panic attack by the time they duck past several other doors, finally reaching Bill’s office. Holden nods at the secretary, who gives him a wary stare, but smiles up at her.  
  
Wendy wonders for a moment if the handsome young woman is a lesbian too, but dismisses the notion as pointless optimism.  
  
She can’t chase Bill’s secretary and expect her secret to last long. Bill has never seemed as overtly homophobic as some law enforcement she’s encountered, but she’s heard nasty snippets enough to know not to trust him.  
  
“Wendy. Holden,” Bill greets through the open door, circumventing her conversation with the young, striking woman.  
  
“Bill,” she replies, smiling quickly.  
  
Holden nods, no more. He ducks in, taking a chair quickly, leaving her to stand. “So, meeting with a congressman. Very impressive how you’re leaving us in your rear view mirror,” Holden comments. It sounds like a compliment, but from Bill’s disguised grimace, it’s veiled needling.  
  
She’s about to speak when she feels a nervous tap on her shoulder. Bill’s secretary has carried in a chair far larger than such a delicate thing should be able to carry. “Oh, thank you… sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”  
  
She looks surprised at being spoken to. “Oh. I’m Felicity. ...Bil-- Agent Tench's secretary.”  
  
“Oh, Felicity. ...Wendy.”  
  
She smiles brightly before she hurries out.  
  
Holden looks faintly annoyed and goes back to picking through his file. “So. I suppose we should skip the niceties and just get into it. What were the problems that you diagnosed?” Holden asks. His bad mood is barely disguised.  
  
Bill adopts a mirrored emotive front at once. “If you’re that lacking in confidence in your proposal, you could have spared me the hours of my life I spent going over this. I was doing you a favour, Holden.”  
  
“Thank you for your hours of effort,” Holden says dryly. 

Bill lights a cigarette and leans back. He looks over at Wendy, who shrugs apologetically. “It’s too detailed for your level of knowledge of the area. You’re not there on the ground. Have you even visited the sites you’re allocating experienced law enforcement personnel to? People are going to be insulted by the FBI sweeping in. No need to make it worse with false confidence and theoretical procedures untethered to the realities of the environment.”  
  
“So your problem is that some feelings might get hurt?”  
  
“My problem is that law enforcement might spend hundreds of man hours surveilling areas that common-sense, local understanding would be able to eliminate in a minute of consideration. You’re getting cocky.”  
  
“I’ve done my research,” Holden tightly assures. Wendy watches his knuckles shine like pearls.  
  
“And research always applies perfectly to the realities of field work,” Bill returns sarcastically, taking a drag of his cigarette.  
  
Holden looks livid.

Wendy suddenly realizes that if she doesn’t break the tension, this hostility might sabotage any shot of Bill returning to their research team. “So you think we should take this concept to a local team and get them to fill in their own procedure?” she suggests.  
  
Holden deflates beside her, eyes glued to his file.  
  
“That would be my suggestion.”  
  
“That seems fairly simple. Maybe we can use Holden’s proposal to run comparison and make sure that they have committed the resources necessary to obtain results.”  
  
“A good idea. I’m not saying let some local buffoon half-ass this.”  
  
“Of course not. Perhaps one of the more experienced joint-agency task force members allocated to the area would oversee it on our behalf.”  
  
“I like Keppel from the few times we’ve interacted,” Bill suggests.  
  
“Holden?”  
  
He nods, flicking through the file without looking up. Wendy relaxes.  
  
“Thank you, Bill. ...now, I was meaning to ask about something a little less practical. I thought it would be very interesting to ask Kemper to construct his own profile of the Atlanta Child Murderer. As an experiment rather than a practical investigative tool.”  
  
Bill’s brow drops. “Is this coming from you?” he asks Holden, intently. Wendy can hear something protective, perhaps paternal.  
  
“It was Dr Carr’s idea,” Holden shoots back, attitude up like a scolded teen.  
  
“Oh,” Bill mutters, leans back. He speaks to her, now. “I don’t think we should devote much more time to Ed. We have plenty of testimony from him already. Too much emphasis on the mind of one individual might skew our overall analysis. We don’t want to treat someone like Edmund as a template for serial killers when he’s simply one data point.”  
  
“A very valid concern. But, at the moment, he’s willing and receptive, which is much more than we can say for most of our… data points. Besides of which, I think allowing Ed to show his own preconceptions about criminals like him might allow us to cross-reference it with his own self-image.”  
  
Bill doesn’t seem to have a good argument against that. “You’re going to go, are you?” he asks Holden critically.  
  
“With Herb, probably.”  
  
“ _Herb_ . You think Kemper’s gonna respond well to Neilson and his intermittent moral panic?”  
  
“Who would you suggest? Greg?”  
  
Bill sneers and crosses his arms. “No. Are you asking me for another favour, Holden?”  
  
“No. I think I should go alone. Strategically.”  
  
Wendy sees a vein in Bill’s temple throb. Kemper is either far more dangerous to Holden than she realized, or Bill is far more involved with Holden’s safety than anything professional friendship. Once again, at breaking point, a phone ringing interrupts. 

Bill looks at the closed door, frowning. “Felicity?” he calls loudly, curses very quietly under his breath when she doesn’t respond. “Wendy, would you mind seeing where she’s gotten to?”  
  
Bill’s congressional visitor is more important than composing this feu d'artifice. She stands and quickly steps out, leaving the door half-closed behind her. Doesn’t want to make trouble for the girl. The phone has stopped ringing, but she’s surprised to see the desk empty. Not very professional. “Felicity?” she calls, spotting the girl’s silhouette through a frosted glass door that leads back to the hallway. With a tall figure. She opens the dividing door. Felicity is looking her way. A stretched smile is on her face, but her body language tells a less pleasant story. A tall man with white hair is leaning on one elbow, blocking her path, but he turns to greet Wendy confidently. She spots a bodyguard lingering by the elevator.  
  
“Well, if you’re Bill Tench, my tour is about to be a lot more pleasant.”  
  
“Dr. Wendy Carr.”  
  
“How disappointing. I’m William Whitehall.”  
  
“2nd district?” she asks, even though she knows the answer. What a foul man for Bill to have to entertain. No wonder he left it at ‘congressman’.  
  
“The congressman didn’t want to interrupt your meeting when I came out to show him in,” Felicity explains nervously.  
  
“I know what important work you do here at Quantico. Besides, it’s not very often I get a chance for a reprieve from boring old men in suits.”  
  
Wendy extends for a handshake, trying to keep her expression pleasant. She thinks about saving Felicity by tasking her with retrieving Bill, but she wants to make sure they haven’t come to blows in her absence. “I’ll go and grab Bill for you. We were wrapping up.”  
  
“Don’t rush anything for me. I’m fifteen minutes early.”  
_  
Thank you_ , Felicity silently mouths behind Whitehall’s back.  
  
Wendy forces yet another smile as she ducks back off, shutting the door behind her just in case there’s an imminent yelling match. Normally, her heels would announce her return, but she treads very lightly on the faux-wood linoleum. Sure, she’s snooping. A little more transparency and she wouldn’t stoop to the tactics of a suspicious mother. Her approach is slow, listening intently, deliberately curling her steps into contact with the flooring. She can hear Felicity’s fake laughter behind her. Finally, she catches Bill’s murmur. At first she can’t understand the words, and then she’s really within earshot.  
  
“--if he hurt you, I’d never forgive myself for--”  
  
“You don’t get to care what happens to me any more, Bill,” comes Holden’s muted reply.  
  
“...I can’t stop caring about you, you idiot.”  
  
It’s not the words, but the way they are spoken. Understanding hits her all at once, blowing fog from her mind like an arriving zephyr.  
  
She’s astounded she didn’t put it together sooner. A wave of hysterics follows, though she remains dead silent and frozen in position. _The FBI’s cutting edge profiling unit was founded entirely by queers._ It’s unfathomably funny to her, as she reels. She can’t breathe or move for a moment, and then steps quietly back several paces. At first, she almost pitied them, but now the anger is hitting her. The colossal betrayal at the lack of professionalism. This work is her whole life and these two men jeopardized it over, what? An extramarital affair? Poor Nancy. ...poor, clever Debbie.

“Bill? Your visitor is here,” she calls, making a point to walk extra loudly as she strides up. She unclenches her fist. Now is most certainly not the time. She, at least, must maintain some composure.  
  
Holden is already on his feet. His expression is steady, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. “Better let Bill entertain his overseer then,” he says, another nod instead of actually speaking to Bill. He hurries off. Wendy expects him to try to charm the lawmaker on his way out. That or abruptly insult him. Her simmering resentment rises.  
  
Bill sighs quietly as he stands. “I still think we should discuss this further.”  
  
Don’t make a scene, she tells herself, and then promptly ignores her own advice. “Yes. Let’s reschedule a meeting and you can lie to my face at a time more convenient to your _busy_ schedule.”  
  
Bill is taken aback. “...did I--”  
  
“Thank you for your consultation, Agent Tench,” she says, and turns.  
  
“Wendy. Hey, Wendy,” Bill says, catching her arm as she’s leaving through his open office door. Her lip curls. Only one frosted glass wall between them and shattering any chance of her work continuing.  
  
“You need to make sure you don’t have cause to work with Holden ever again,” she enunciates, quiet and venomous. “I’ll ensure no member of our team turns to you for help. But you keep the hell away from me. And from _him_.”  
  
Bill’s eyes widen. She sees horror, hurt. His low voice is entreating. He doesn’t let go of her arm. “...I never took you for a homophobe.”  
  
She scoffs. “I’m a lesbian, you unprofessional sleazebag. Now take your fucking hand off me.” 

She barely musters up a smile and a polite goodbye to Whitehall, and her expression drops the moment his back is turned and he’s greeting Bill with a respect he never expressed for her. She feels her heart pounding in her ears as she makes it to the elevator.  
  
Holden is gone.  
  
She jabs the button to go down. In the basement, she tries to keep herself rational as she seeks him out. Herbert and Greg look up, but Holden’s desk is empty. She frowns and ducks back out. She checks the men’s bathroom, a single, unisex unoccupied toilet. That’s basement office space for you.  
  
She deliberates. Where else would Holden go? Home? To his girlfriend? ...to Kemper again? Then her eyes rest upon the only other basement door. It leads to a tiny, musty room they’d once considered turning into a storage space for their archives. She hesitates and then pushes the unlocked door in. It’s pitch black inside. Surely Holden wouldn’t stoop to hiding like a child.  
  
But then she hears the baited, caught breath. She hits the light switch, at the same time she hears his voice:  
  
“Wendy--”  
  
He’s sitting in the single broken office chair barely a foot from the light switch. He’s obviously been crying, though now in the white-green light pulled his posture upright. Trying to act with some decorum. As if she hadn’t just caught him weeping alone in an abandoned, dark room.  
  
The furious, tumultuous anger is replaced instantly by deeply personal empathy. He’s not the married man running around on a wife and a child. And he’s young, perhaps a decade younger than her. Where was she, ten years ago, coming to terms with her sexuality? What awful and unethical things might she have done if confined to this rigid, heteronormative environment? Her own most recent relationship was certainly not adultery, but it undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of professionalism. She shuts the door, and then leans against it, sagging.  
  
Holden stares at her, lost for words (for once in his goddamn life), trying to ascertain how much she knows.  
  
“I’ve told Bill to keep his professional distance from our work,” she says in a steely tone, by way of explanation.  
  
Holden’s shoulders drop, shoulders crushing inwards on his chest. “It’s not his fault,” he blurts out.  
  
“Holden. Please. I can’t hear about this. We have to work together.”  
  
Holden nods, looking down. “I’m so sorry,” he mutters. “I know how much you gave up to come onboard with my stupid pet project.”  
  
“It’s not-- it’s insulting to hear you say this work we’re doing is stupid. You obviously don’t believe that. ...do you have someone to talk to? About this?” She can tell he’s thinking about lying, so she shakes her head. “I’m going to put a card on your desk. A therapist I can personally vouch for. She’s smarter than you, and I think you’ll like that.”  
  
He almost laughs at that, then nods. He looks entirely heartbroken. Wendy feels a painful camaraderie.  
  
“Holden, I need you to pull it together. Take half an hour, clean up, then come back to work.”  
  
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”  
  
“What good would that do, hm?” she sighs.


	4. Chapter 4

Beers with Herb are as exhausting as the tour with Whitehall. As intoxication sets in the normally taciturn agent become whiny. The man does not seem overly fond of Greg, or Wendy, but his feelings for Holden are quickly revealed to be nothing short of loathing.  
  
Bill has to grit his teeth as Herb reels off grievances dating all the way back to his first few days in the new unit. Perceived disrespect. Being relegated behind a young ‘radical’. Bill relays just enough of his own petty issues with Holden to keep the conversation ticking over. That feels like a betrayal. Herb’s ruddy face looks more and more punchable as he relates his contempt for his coworker. He gives Holden zero credit for any achievements, finds his studiousness regarding his work troubling, and shows blatant disgust for Holden’s attempts to engage with their subjects.  
  
_Why did you take the goddamn job if you can’t stomach what needs to be done?_ Bill doesn’t say that. He drinks his beer, slower than Herb, and pries information about the scheduled interview with Kemper. Only a week away. Jesus. Not much time to sabotage official FBI business.  
  
“I told Wendy I’d do it. But as far as I’m concerned, Ford can go alone. I couldn’t care less what Kemper’s thoughts are on this case. A waste of time, of agency resources, of taxpayer’s dollars.”  
  
Bill is so incensed by the self-righteousness that he has to excuse himself to the bathroom. It’s more than just that. An inextinguishable paranoia has been alit. Holden really is doing his best to see Kemper alone. Does he have a fucking deathwish? He runs a hand down his face, his lips. Beyond the cloying taste of stale beer there’s the odd salt of blood. He wonders if he bit his cheek.

 

 

Bill calls Wendy three times over the next few days. He tries three different openings.  
  
_Wendy--_  
  
_Please--_  
  
_Would you just--_  
  
As soon as she recognizes his voice, the phone’s connection buzzes out to static.  
  
In those few seconds of dial tone, the whole thing seems preposterous. Holden is a smart bastard, too smart to be entertaining the idea of another solitary visit to Vacaville.  
  
But then at other times he’s stricken by the possibility.  
  
Especially when he’s trying to sleep on his couch. He misses Nancy, but can’t bring himself to beg for forgiveness. Not when he’s thinking about the object of his betrayal relentlessly. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, and he doesn’t deserve her. Shared custody of Bryan is the only sliver of family life he expects to keep by the end of the year. He’s not at all surprised when he wakes to find divorce papers on the coffee table beside the couch he’s taken up permanent residence on. Should have known she would never, ever be okay with him stepping out on her. Nancy has more self-respect than that.  
  
More than Holden.  
  
He doesn’t think about the life-destroying legal document he leaves tucked in a corner of his home office. He sets off for Quantico, to avoid seeing her, and once more finds himself down in the basement. He tries the door, unsurprisingly still locked. It’s barely half past seven. So he intrudes once more, situating himself in Wendy’s office and keeping his brain occupied with James Earl Ray’s file.

 

 

It’s not long before he hears the elevator distantly, then the sticky clack of heels on linoleum. Just as well she beat Holden in. He’s not completely sure he could hold his temper. Wendy walks through the empty office slowly, curiously pressing the half-shut door in. She startles when she sees Bill lounging back on the chair he dragged in.  
  
“Just me.”  
  
She swears under her breath, unclenching her fists. “Why haven’t you returned your set of keys?” she asks severely. She’s jumpy with adrenaline, but her gaze is withering.  
  
Bill picks them out of his pocket, unclips the key very deliberately, and puts in down on the desk. “Sit down, Wendy.”  
  
“Are you ordering me around my own office in an official capacity, _Agent_ ?”  
  
“ _Please_ sit down. When’s Holden leaving for California?”  
  
Her lips become one, flat, unemotive line. She doesn’t sit. “He’s in California.”  
  
“Wait, the interview with Kemper is today?” Bill mutters, doing some furious math. Surely he had another few days to stop this. ...Holden could be pulling up into California Medical now. He looks at the phone on her desk, wondering if it’s about to alert them to some awful news. He remembers the time difference, now feeling as if he’s calculating the time left on an unreliable, improv explosive.  
  
She lets him stew before she answers, stepping no further into the office. “Holden’s consulting on a cold case in Rancho Cordova today. The interview with Kemper is tomorrow.”  
  
“You have to make sure Herb goes to the interview with him.”  
  
“Herb isn’t even in California.”  
  
Bill raises an eyebrow. “Why the hell not?”  
  
“That’s none of your fucking business.”  
  
“...perhaps I’m not making myself clear. A one-on-one interview with Ed Kemper would put Holden into immediate, mortal danger.”  
  
Wendy sighs, folding her arms. “How many of these interviews has Holden done? You let him interview Brudos alone. I don’t see how Kemper is so different.”  
  
“You saw the cards, Wendy. And you know what happened when he went there last time.”  
  
“Kemper didn’t try to hurt him--”  
  
“He trapped him, threatened him, fucking _embraced_ him. He said right to my face that he got off on Holden being scared of him.”  
  
“Every single subject we interview has an enormous potential for violence, Bill. That is part and parcel of interviewing homicidal psychopaths,” Wendy points out coldly. But now, she takes a step in, finally crosses to sit at her desk. “Are you sure this is rational concern?”  
  
Bill fumes. He can read the subtext there. “Kemper is growing fixated on Holden, who has ignored him these past months. Kemper is bound to see that as a personal betrayal, the same kind that prompted his last escalation with Holden. Kemper hates being unwanted, that’s the fundamental underpinning of every single one of his murders. He killed his goddamn cat because it didn’t wanna be petted by him.” He can see his words aren’t having the intended effect. He changes tack. “...from the way Ed talks about Holden behind his back, I’ve got no doubt he’s at least curious. Sexually. He’d probably enjoy desecrating an FBI agent, for the celebrity if nothing else. You and I both know that Ed Kemper could best Holden physically, even with his hands cuffed and chained. He could kill him in a matter of seconds. No way the guards get there in time. Means, motive, opportunity. Yes, it’s a _rational concern_ .”   

Wendy’s calm demeanour finally breaks. “Why the hell didn’t you say this when I raised the idea in our meeting?”  
  
“Well, frankly, I didn’t think Holden was this fucking stupid. I thought he was trying to get under my skin.” He pats himself down for cigarettes, realizes that in his hurried fleeing they were abandoned on the coffee table. Instead, he drums nervously on the armrest of his chair. “You have to cancel the interview.”  
  
“How exactly would I do that? I’m an academic, he’s FBI. I have zero authority over Holden in this context. I could reschedule, make an excuse, but if he shows up anyway? He’s the one with the badge. ...I’ll get Herb to--”  
  
“Holden will slip, or just annoy him outta going along. Especially Herb. I’ll go.”  
  
Wendy raises an eyebrow. “I’m not going to allow that.”  
  
“As you just said, I’m the one with the badge.”  
  
“You’re the one having an affair with a male coworker.” The threat is obvious, and from her stony expression Bill honestly believes she’d follow through. Instantly incinerate his career, his entire life. His throat is dry when he replies, grave and slow.  
  
“Tell Shepard about us, then. No way Holden does his goddamn interview after that comes out. He’ll be too busy trying to find a new job, something with a more... liberal environment. There goes your fucking study, Wendy. Tell Nancy, break her damn heart. She’s divorcing me anyway, but you go ahead and let her know her husband is a piece of shit faggot.”  
  
Her lips purse.  
  
Bill’s tone softens. “I don’t think you want to blackmail me. Maybe you’ll follow through on principle. Maybe you won’t. But there is no consequence you could possibly threaten me with that would stop me from trying to save Holden’s life. So do whatever you want. I’m going to California.”  
  
Wendy is quiet, regarding him intently. She picks up the key, shutting it in a lower desk draw, and picks up the file Bill had been looking through. She doesn't look up again as she neatens it. “Can you please shut my door on your way out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so busy recently so sorry this update didn't come as speedily! Next chapter is already half-written so fingers crossed that one is in the immediate pipeline...? I'm just so excited about Ed. Dammit, now I'm sounding like Holden.


	5. Chapter 5

The curving road shimmies before his eyes like a psychedelic sequence in a second rate fantasy movie. Holden blinks hard, forcing his vision straight.  
  
He has been prematurely kicked from every REM cycle he’s attempted in the last week. Usually by dreams of Kemper rising gargantuan from a hospital bed. Sometimes simply an implacable buzz of dread. He dismisses it, quashes it ruthlessly, forces his attention anywhere else. If he can stop feeling this feeling, then he can stop feeling any feeling. The blaring radio reels off college football scores as he pulls through security and into California Medical Facility’s parking lot. Now, excitement rises, and he considers the angles to approach Kemper through. Kemper’s profile will be illuminating one way or another. Speaking with Ed will stimulate him out of his depressive haze.  
  
He’s almost at the reception desk, completely on autopilot, when he smells tobacco smoke. As inexplicably a hallucination, Bill sits in the foyeur, a cigarette dangling between his sneering lips.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Holden asks, annoyed and disquieted.  
  
Bill barely keeps his tone civil. “Last minute change to interview strategy. These folks have been kind enough to give us a private room to discuss. Would you follow me?”  
  
Holden glances ahead to the receptionist. He’s already self-conscious enough coming here, in case someone knows him as the FBI agent who had a panic attack on their premises. Bill must count on him not wanting to make a scene. This how serial killers abduct their victims, Holden thinks, as he follows obediently into the empty office space. 

Bill checks they aren’t being listened in on as he shuts the door behind Holden, then rounds on the younger man. “Is this a cry for attention? D’you wanna be a damsel in distress?”  
  
Holden rolls his eye dismissively. He sets down his briefcase, and turns back to Bill, squaring his shoulders. “This is an interview with a subject. I have no idea what you’re doing here. No elected officials in the vicinity to schmooze with. Did you get lost on the way to the golf course?”  
  
The last comment cleanly erases whatever minutiae of self-control Bill was still clinging to. In what is coming to feel familiar, Bill’s hands are on his shoulders, shoving him deliberately back until he hits the wall. Holden feels a jolt of arousal. A conditioned response, he suspects.  
  
He’s too angry at being babied to really give in to the thrill. “My interviewing technique is no longer your concern, Agent Tench. You left our department, and my actions have nothing to do with you,” Holden states, as clinically as he can muster, while Bill breathes heavily into his face.  
  
Bill drops the grip on Holden’s lapel, posture hulking as he rocks back on the balls of his feet like a boxer. Holden wonders if he’s tempting violence yet again, if Bill is finally going to beat his face to a bloody pulp. Bill expresses himself verbally instead. “I’m here to make sure you don’t leave this interview in a body bag,” he enunciates.  
  
“I’m interviewing him exactly where I always have. There are guards, Bill. Stop being paranoid.”  
  
That accusation earns a tiny spasm of contempt on Bill’s lips. He spits his next words close to Holden’s face: “If you’re suicidal, at least have the decency to hang yourself in the privacy of your own apartment. I don’t want to have to hear about the things Edmund Kemper did to your corpse.”  
  
Holden cannot keep from flinching. Even Bill appears bothered by his own words the moment they’ve broken upon Holden’s ears. He raises his hands in contrition, though his tone remains heated.  
  
“I mean-- Jesus, Holden. Do I have to say it? Please. Don’t. Die. Please don’t get murdered. Not by Ed Kemper.”  
  
“I’m not going to get murdered by Ed Kemper,” Holden mutters. Huh. Should have injected some more confidence into that one. Maybe he’ll raise that in his second therapy session with Dr. Mordeen. He does need to try to open up with her.  
  
Bill scrutinizes him, then nods in agreement. “No. ‘Cause I’m gonna be there to save your stupid ass.”  
  
“You’re not coming in to the interview with me.”  
  
“I’m fucking FBI. I’ll do what I want.” 

It’s Holden’s turn to raise his eyes to the roof in exasperation. “Bill. Please, be professional,” he murmurs, echoing Wendy.  
  
“Professional went out the window when you seduced Ed Kemper, Holden,” Bill says nastily. Holden feels his lip curl with horror. He regains control all but instantaneously, but Bill obviously scented the blood. He is relentless.  
  
“You know what happens if I let you go in there alone? Ed waits, gets you comfortable, maybe starts concocting a profile, makes some excuse to breach your personal space. Tests your boundaries. And then he breaks your neck, fucks your lifeless mouth, until a guard hears the wet squelching comi--”  
  
“Enough,” Holden snaps, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Now you’re a delicate blossom, huh? When it concerns your body, instead of Cindy Schall’s?”  
  
Holden is a little surprised to hear Bill still knows the name of Kemper’s victims off the top of his head. “If Kemper wanted me dead, I’d be dead already. He had the opportunity.”  
  
“You don’t think _maybe_ the poster child for separation anxiety might be a little ticked off that you’ve ignored him for months?”  
  
Holden swallows and looks away.  
  
“We’re not debating this. Either I walk in there with you, or I’ll break your fucking leg so you don’t walk anywhere.”  
  
“You’ve hurt me, and threatened to hurt me a lot more than Kemper ever has, you know,” Holden mutters. It sounds more shameful out loud.  
  
“Yeah, well, I’ve spent a lot more time with you,” Bill replies sullenly as he pushes past Holden and yanks the door open. 

Holden pulls a childish face behind his back, then hurriedly follows. His mind thrums, plotting a dozen courses of action to abort this nightmarish reunion, none of which he acts upon. Just follows Bill through security, hands over his gun and badge, matches his partner’s pace. The oppressive, unnaturally lit turns of California Medical feel more like a labyrinth than ever. He inhales the chemical sterility and the filth that hides below.  
  
Holden feels distinctly bothered by his presence in such an environment, more than ever before.  
  
He could live in cleanliness or disorder, crappy motels or austere offices. Usually he passes untouched through in his invisible hazmat suit of introspection. He rises from his thoughts now, unbearably pressed to the walls of the external world. An armed guard’s unfocused stare. Bill pushing the door in to their usual interview room with unfettered confidence. The whine of an ungreased hinge. The sight of Ed Kemper’s turned body, receptive and serene. His vacant, veiled lilt.  
  
“Well, if it isn’t my two favourite FBI agents.”

“How many FBI agents do you know?” Bill asks dryly, taking a seat like he owns the place.  
  
Holden forces his posture casual, sitting directly opposite Ed. It’s there he sees Kemper’s hands, resting open palmed on the table. Not chained. From the scathing sideways glance, Bill noticed too.  
  
Ed smiles at Holden magnanimously, chuckling as his eyes sweep back to Bill. “Well, when you put it that way, I suppose you’re also my two least favourite FBI agents. But that wouldn’t make the most polite of greetings.”  
  
“No, it wouldn’t.”  
  
“Hello, Ed. It’s been awhile,” Holden says, placing down the briefcase on an empty seat on his other side. He removes the files and the recorder, placing it down without pressing a button.  
  
“It sure has,” Kemper says, lightly reproachful.  
  
“Our department has been very busy.” Holden tries to inject some genuine apology into his tone. Partly for Ed, partly because he knows it will piss Bill off.  
  
“I can tell. I read those files you faxed over, by the way. Felt very important with my official FBI documents, even if they wouldn’t let me take them back to my room. I felt like a colleague, Holden. I’m glad you heard me when I spoke about a working relationship.”  
  
“I did. ...what did you think?”  
  
“Of the crimes? Of the two psychological profiles you sent me? My thoughts on how to apprehend him?”  
  
Holden hadn’t been sure about priming Ed by supplying him with law enforcement’s psychological profiles, but Wendy had considered it worthwhile to maximise the opportunity to unpick Kemper’s opinions. He reaches forward, starting the recording. “Anything. Start wherever you want to.” 

“Well, okay,” Kemper obliges. He leans back, folding a leg up over his knee, reaching for the hem of his prison issue jeans and tugging it down over the large ankle beneath. He looks back up, head cocked as he regards Holden. “I suppose you thought that if I knew which profile was your creation, I might be swayed towards believing it. That’s why you didn’t note the authors.”  
  
“I thought going into it blind might be more constructive. I wanted objectivity.”  
  
“I knew which one was yours, of course. That detailed portrait of a young, perpetually dysfunctional black male. I thought it was fascinating. Made me wonder what your profile of my crimes would have looked like. If you could have caught me before I turned myself in.”  
  
“I wouldn’t be able to construct these psychological profiles if I hadn’t first talked to you, Ed.” With anyone else, the mutual flattery would be absurd and heavy-handed. It clearly pleases Ed. He can see Bill glowering at him, and the rising foreboding in his coiled guts agrees with his partner’s assessment.  
  
“Was the other profile your try, Bill?” Ed asks.  
  
Bill shakes his head. Holden hides a smirk.  
  
“No. Holden and I are a team. If there’s contention, it happens before we induct secondary sources of input into our investigation.”  
  
“I see. So it was a collaboration.”  
  
“Holden wrote it, and then came to me for guidance and critique.”  
  
Holden’s lips twitch. It’s true enough to argue the point, but also enough of a lie to infuriate him. Bill contributed zilch, seeing as he was climbing the rungs of the political ladder at the time. He looks only at Ed. “What did you think of the other profile?”  
  
“Unlikely. What sort of racial intimidation happens without burning crosses, or at least a few carved swastikas? Even some graffiti.”  
  
“Right,” Holden agrees, leaning in. 

“Objective didn’t last long,” Bill says under his breath.  
  
Kemper gives Bill a sidelong glance. His attention returns completely to Holden. “I think he’s black, because if you ask me, he’s acting out feelings of childhood inadequacy. It makes sense to act those out upon on a younger version of yourself, or a younger version of your peers.”  
  
“What makes you say that?” Holden says, finding a pen and paper, intent upon the words. Wendy was right. This is invaluable insight into Kemper’s cause-and-effect view of his own behaviour. “The childhood inadequacy part, I mean.”  
  
“Well, the crimes are all against children. And though I believe there is a sexual element, these crimes seem punitive or vengeful rather than shallowly gratifying. He's deriving deeper emotional satisfaction, not just acting out a fetish that requires a corpse.”  
  
Bill looks at Holden out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“The last two possible victims are adults,” Holden says, opening the file.  
  
“It’s a very violent area, from what I understand. I would be surprised if all the crimes in the file you gave me were committed by the same man.”  
  
Holden pen scratches on the paper. “You think he’s picking children specifically, rather than resorting to someone he can control?”  
  
“He has a gun. It’s very easy to control even an adult, if you have a gun.”  
  
“You’re a big guy, Ed. He might not be,” Bill points out, moving much closer to Holden to look over his shoulder at the notes.  
  
Holden tries not to tense. Whatever this ploy is, it’s bound to upset Ed.  
  
“A lot of his victims are teenage boys. Harder to intimidate than petite Co-Eds,” Tench adds.  
_  
Shut the fuck up, Bill._ Holden changes topic rapidly before Kemper can register the veiled insult to his accomplishments. “Aside from the adults, did anyone stand out to you as needing exclusion?”  
  
Kemper’s frown fades as Holden draws back attention. “The seven year old abducted from his home seemed odd. I can’t remember his name. Someone said they saw two kidnappers? I know eyewitnesses are unreliable, but I’m sure this killer is working alone.”  
  
“Latonya Williams,” Holden says thoughtfully. “He is the youngest potential victim, by nearly two full years. He was quite tall for his age, around four foot ten, eleven, from memory. It’s still two years though, a very significant gap at that stage of development.”  
  
Ed nods. “I think for this killer, age is very important. I’m surprised gender wasn’t more important. I suppose that’s more potential exclusions, the girls.”  
  
Holden makes a note about the genders, feeling Bill’s eyes on him. He’s feeling far more confident, and there’s none of the gut revulsion and horror he thought might creep back in being so close to Kemper.  
  
“Did you ever think about murdering men, Ed?” Bill asks, lighting a cigarette.  
  
“Not for sexual gratification,” Ed answers instantly, without looking over. It’s too sharp and abrupt. Holden can sense rage radiating like he's standing near an open fire. It must be some deep-rooted survival instinct, some subconscious reading of signals, because Kemper’s affect seems calm as ever. “Sometimes the impulse occurs, if someone provokes me. I don’t think you have to be a murderer to dislike rudeness. Are you hungry, Holden?”  
  
“No, but would you like me to get something for you?” Holden asks indulgently.  
  
“You’re doing it again,” Ed rebukes, cross.  
  
Holden’s calm exterior nearly breaks. Adrenaline has his voice strangled. “Pardon?”  
  
Ed shakes his head ruefully. “You’re flirting, Holden. I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”  
  
“I wasn’t trying to--” Holden starts to slowly mumble, looking at the tape recorder. He’ll have to destroy this one before Wendy or Greg or god forbid, Herb, hears it. He becomes very aware of the pace of his own breath. Please, not another panic attack, not in front of Bill.  
  
Bill interrupts his growing horror. Holden is taken aback by the hand between shoulder blades, but it’s a pat of fraternal reassurance and no more. “I think we was just trying to be polite after you said how much you dislike rudeness,” Bill reassures.  
  
“Do you think so, Bill?” Kemper asks, folding his arms and leaning forward. “Or are you just used to him acting this way around you?”  
  
“Holden doesn’t interview me.”  
  
“Does he flirt with you?”  
  
“No. He’s very professional,” Bill replies reticently.  
  
Holden knows that Edmund doesn’t buy it. The tension lingers for a moment as Ed Kemper studies Holden. He doesn’t want Bill here, Holden thinks. Maybe he _was_ planning on killing me.  
  
“Actually, I’ll have a sandwich.”  
  
“Egg salad?”  
  
“Why, thank you, Holden.”


	6. Chapter 6

The egg salad is mustardy, rich, and reconciles the half-stale bread. Ed eats deliberately, to slow up the conversation, keeping his eyes averted from the two federal agents in a great show of meditation. The prison ambience filters in. Someone shouting. A distant door closing heavily. He dusts his fingers off, scrapes his thumbnail across his chin to catch a skerrick that had fallen, and then cleans underneath the nail.   
  
“You’ve gone very quiet, Holden.”   
  
“You looked like you were enjoying that, and I didn’t want to interrupt. Was that enough?”   
  
Kemper tilts his chin, lining Holden up near the bottom rim of his thick glasses.   
  
Holden smiles back blankly. He must have calmed himself. Ed misses his nervous ticks.   
  
“I’m fine, thank you. Where were we?”   
  
“Age and gender profile of victims.”   
_  
No, we weren’t, Holden. _ Kemper only nods. “Did you have any further questions on that, Bill? From my own expertise?” He allows the phrase to have lecherous connotations, first meeting Bill’s eyes, and then back to examining Holden almost speculatively. In his peripheral view, Bill folds his arms.   
  
“Did you have more to contribute?” Bill asks flatly.   
  
“I could rack my brain for times I’ve thought about killing a man, and describe the impulse to you in detail. Would that help, with your current case?” _You know who, Bill.  
_  
Bill shifts his chair, fingers drumming on his forearm. Edmund appreciates that he and Bill are endlessly engaged in private conference about Holden, even as he sits naively beside them. He dangles the implication Bill’s way with all the pleasure of a lazy Sunday fishing trip. How would Bill take the vivid description he would be capable of producing? ...how would Holden? Would he suspect that Ed was talking about enacting violence on _him_ , would he start to shake again, zone out into that terrified contemplation? It’s not as gratifying as the acts that may have been possible without Bill’s guardianship, but it’s something. Violently imposing himself into Holden’s brain.  

Bill checks the recorder before he speaks again. “You said your homicidal urges towards men were products of anger. Might not help analysis of what is almost certainly a sexually motivated crime. ...we believe this is an individual without a fixed gender preference in children, being as they are less sexually dimorphic at that age. He has a more fixed gender preference in adults. Lust covers every murder.”  
  
It’s a backhanded challenge to Ed’s earlier hypothesis, he’s sure. If he weren’t, Holden momentarily pursing his lips would have given it away. It’s a relief to know Holden is on his side, and that this isn’t a flimsy interrogation strategy to rile him. He’s not a colleague if he’s being dissected alongside the mystery kid killer.   
  
“Could be. I’m not the expert here. What do you think, Holden?”   
  
Holden shrugs. Kemper feels a swell of annoyance at the obfuscation. Is this working relationship all a masquerade? His good will is eroding quickly again. He’d anticipated a murder all morning, and so is dissatisfied with the interview thus far.   
  
“I think until we have more information, or more crime scene evidence, talk of excluding any potential data points is merely a conceptual tool. Nothing can be eliminated, we can only attempt to temporarily discount it in the name of a cohesive profile,” Holden explains quietly. “But you can’t accurately diagnose someone’s psychological state if you attribute to them actions that they never performed, either. The reasoning that you believe a potential victim merits exclusion is valuable. It gives me a new lens through which I can reevaluate the case.”   
  
The sincerity is at once endearing. Kemper feels creeping apology settle into his features-- never quite remorse, but he admonishes himself for the hasty judgment. The fondness for Holden doesn’t lessen the lethal desires. “Do you want to hear?”   
  
“Hear what?” Bill interjects before Holden can respond. Ed doesn’t heed him in the slightest.   
  
“Hear what?” Holden echoes softer.   
  
Edmund leans forward, the metal chair gently protesting in a muted groan. He is bloodthirsty, elevated stratospherically with sensation. The same adrenalined madness as pulling over and offering his girls a ride to Fresno State. Especially when Holden meets his eye and Ed sees pure, lonely desperation. Holden doesn’t know how to say ‘no’ to people like Ed.   
  
“About killing men. I mean, my grandfather, there’s not so much to tell there. I was an impulsive kid. I was just so angry. Plenty of people kill family members and you don’t want to go out and interview all of them, do you?” Holden shakes his head, back to grinding his teeth nervously.  

Ed wonders if any modicum of Holden’s hypnotised visage is an act. Another mask. But, ultimately, he doesn’t care whether there’s authenticity in how he dominates Holden’s mind. If Holden is performing, it’s still for him and nobody else. “I suppose it’s not always anger. Sometimes it’s curiosity. I did some awful things to some nice people because I was curious. It’s senseless and it’s-- it’s the only thing that makes any sense to you in that moment. The only rational action when you feel such a compelling force. I needed to know, Holden. Do you understand?”  
  
“I...I think so,” Holden tries.   
  
“You have no idea, do you?” Ed asks, softly. _No idea the things humans can do to each other. Not for all the crime scenes in the world. Or you wouldn’t have come here._  
  
“We’re trying to understand you, Ed,” Bill says from worlds away. Even his patronizing tone can’t jolt Kemper out of his fugueish thrill. He’s so close to blurting it out just to see the direct traumatization of Holden. The thronging impulse is interrupted, this time by a cleared throat. Ed turns his head to see CO Williams, a usually very agreeable guard, standing by the opened door.   
  
“Agent Ford, there’s a call for you.”   
  
Holden’s eyes narrow analytically. His back is ramrod vertical. Kemper is studious now, drinking in the incredible transformation into competent, control freak FBI agent. “From whom?”   
  
“...uh, a doctor? ...she said another body showed up. In a river,” the man adds, clearly intimidated by his newfound involvement in an FBI case.   
  
Holden is up out of his seat in a moment, but he stops and turns back to Bill. Kemper feels an itch of dissatisfaction that Holden’s still deferring to Bill rather than him. Not scared enough, then. Holden speaks sotto voce, but Kemper catches it all.   
  
“You saw the file. Several of the killings occurred within days of each other. He might be on a spree as we speak. We have to get that surveillance underway befor--”   
  
“I get it, Holden. I’m good to take this from here.”   
  
Obsession shows as Holden fidgets. Doesn’t want anything happening without him steering, Ed decides. Holden finally looks over. “I’ll be back,” he promises.   
  
“I’m not going walkabout,” Edmund jests dryly.   
  
Holden inflates purposefully, and then the sound of slick leather shoes on lino is fading from earshot. It’s just him and Bill, disconnected and wary, and the echoes of that dumb motherfucker a block over still yelling. 

“So,” Kemper finally opens, “may I ask how your wife is _now_ ?”   
  
Tench’s lip twists into a sneer and he reaches over abruptly to the still running tape recorder. He pauses before he hits any buttons, and seems to reconsider. His hand returns to his body, a closed fist resting on the metal tabletop.   
  
“We should stay on topic. Would you care to describe your fantasies about killing …a man?”   
  
Kemper looks at the tiny silvery box, piecing together the unspoken strategy. “He’s not going to be scared away, Bill,” he gloats.   
  
“Who isn’t?”   
  
Kemper returns a admonitory look. “I’ll wait for Holden to return. This is his area of expertise, not yours.”   
  
“Holden isn’t going to have time for a speculative side project after this new development in an active case.”   
  
“He’ll make time for me.”   
  
“You think?” Bill asks, teeth gritted. He pulls out his crumpled packet of smokes, relaxes as his lighter flashes inside his palm. “Just as well Holden doesn’t really call the shots. You think you can just sit around, threatening, insinuating, in an FBI interview, and the FBI will keep coming back?”   
  
“Here you are.”   
  
“I’m here for that there tape, Ed, not for you. Anyone listening to it could tell that Holden is behaving unprofessionally. He’ll be formally censured, or fired, or at the very least banned from seeing you,” Tench says. He looks exhausted, Ed thinks, but gravely serious. He processes the threat to his meetings, to his involvement in the glamour of FBI cases. The very real threat of cutting off any access to Holden. _Is Bill really that jealous? ...is he really that protective?_ He allows himself to straighten, letting his vertebrae unknot from the unassuming hunch he often defaults to.   
  
“Are you angry at him because he refused you?”   
  
Bill smirks and folds his arms.   
  
Ed tries anew. “I don’t want to kill Holden.”   
  
“I see. ...are _all_ your murder fantasies just ploys for attention?” Bill continues smoking. Kemper starts to seriously choreograph his route around the table.   
  
Bill misreads the silence. “...not so fun talking about Ford when you can’t watch him squirm? Go on, Ed. Tell me about your fantasies about murdering your interviewing FBI agent, nice and clear for the recorder.”

It’s such heavy-handed bait that Ed starts examining the possibility that he’s being set up. But the guards are still at least fifteen or twenty seconds away worst case scenario-- he’d already run through procedure when he’d been planning Holden’s death.   
  
If Ed wanted any time with Holden’s body, the murder would have had to be poetry in motion. Hand over the mouth, other arm around his throat. Scoop him up flailing off the ground and walk him into the corner, away from furniture that could be kicked over loudly. It would have taken perhaps another minute for all to be serene. Then Holden would have been perfectly receptive. Finally no more petty strategies and cerebral barriers. All his for the taking.   
  
Humiliating Tench is less desirable, despite Ed’s heated dislike. It need not be discreet. Just killing him would do it. His first murder in years, and what a murder it would be: a seasoned FBI agent who happened to piss him off. That would cement his legacy. It would scar Holden for life, imprint Ed indelibly into his every waking thought. Holden would become obsessed, likely in an adversarial capacity. No more disappearing for months at a time. He would be here gaping and threatening and close to tears about the murder of his partner.   
  
He makes his decision.   
  
“I would wait for him to be leaning in listening. I’d take him by the neck, pull him close like we were waltzing. I’d get my bicep nice and tight on his neck.” He waits for Bill Tench’s lungs to fill with cigarette smoke before he continues. “When he felt that I was hard he’d know he was going to die.”   
  
Bill coughs with horrified shock, the cigarette crushed between his fingers, tobacco springing free in straw-brown curls. His forehead is ruddy and his eyes are wild with rage. The tiniest break in attention.   
  
Ed’s up and blocking the way out.   
  
Another step forward as Tench jumps up out of his chair and his mouth opens to yell something. He doesn’t get the words out. 

“Ed, what are you doing?” Holden’s strained voice is confused. Outraged.   
  
Ed turns just enough to see him, watching Tench square up like a seasoned veteran. He is a veteran, Kemper’s pretty sure. Ed’s indecision hits like concrete hits falling fine china. He is raw and terrified.   
  
He meets Holden’s eyes imploringly. His shaking hand shoots out, catching the voice recorder. He hurls it at the ground with all his strength. The technological marvel is reduced to a spray of plastic shards and cogs and cassette tape.  
  
“What the _FUCK_ ,” Holden yells out, jumping forward, fingers splayed with shock.   
  
“Get back, idiot!” he hears Bill order.   
  
Ed’s appeal is heated now, only for Holden. “He was going to get you fired. He said, he was go-- hey, hey, easy--” Kemper sinks to his knees, hands raised as the footfalls pound in. He doesn’t look at the gun.   
  
“Down, down, down, on the floor inmate!”   
  
Not so mild-mannered now, Williams. Ed suddenly worries he’s going to be shot. He stays perfectly stationary except to lower himself the rest of his way to the floor, twisting his neck to try to meet Holden’s eyes.   
  
“Bill, are you okay--” Holden is whispering, ignoring everything else going on to try to support Tench’s weight.   
  
“Get the fuck off me,” Tench snaps, huffing air.   
  
Holden shrinks back, and then turns on Ed. Not much effort to read the narrowed, dark glare. Hatred. He knows that look well-- mourning parents in courtrooms, his do-gooder lawyer, his own mother. Williams is cuffing his hands, and Ed is unresisting.   
  
“Are you okay?” Holden tries Bill again. “Did he touch you?”   
  
Bill doesn’t look at Holden, doesn’t look at Ed. He’s staring at the demolished tape recorder with blind shock. Another guard is rushing in. A knee ends up on the back of Ed’s head, knocking his glasses skew, painfully pressing his cheekbone into the flooring. There's thick, zig-zagging rubber boot tread beside his squashed nose.   
  
As he’s being hauled away, he sees the blurry shape of Bill finally lean his weight onto Holden. Then, he knows.


End file.
